


Paris, 16 November 1636

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [22]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Constance is getting increasingly assertive, Correspondence, Embedded Images, F/F, F/M, Female Solo, Franco-Spanish War, Imagination, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Other, Sex Toys, War, Wartime, fantasising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 06:42:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16153715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: 1 June 1636Dear Constance,Please forgive me for not writing this letter sooner – everything became ratherintenseshortly after yours arrived. Thecannonadekind of intense…Both Athos and Porthos send their love, but they have written their own notes to you, so you can read for yourself. Porthos hurt his shoulder again throwing a Spanish soldier. He was rather grumpy about it for a while, but he’s recovered now…*Another instalment in the long series of wartime correspondence (and other pieces based around the black box that is the Musketeers during the Spanish War).





	1. Palace to Garrison

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is for second chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Embedded letter images will have a text version in the end notes.

“Madame!” calls down the corridor after her, and she’s flung back in time, half-expecting to turn and see Athos hurrying, compact and crow-black, after her.

The servant quails only a little in the face of her expression, which is none too gentle. “Uh, post, Madame, for you. I’m to tell you: ‘Sorry. We didn’t see it.’”

She holds her hands out and he proffers something with a mildly distasteful expression she understands when it lands on her palms. Ungainly, grubby, battered, and… she lowers her head slightly and sniffs, catches the eye of the other servant, who grimaces sympathetically on a small nod. It does not smell good. It smells, in fact, like it’s been in a pile of rotting leaves. It’s entirely possible that it has and she’s abruptly grateful to Athos (who else?) who had wrapped the whole in a scrap of oilcloth before binding it.

She fetches out her knife, slits the matted string without a moment’s hesitation and holds up a finger at the man when he makes as if to leave. Something about her face, hand, or – she reflects – knife have him rapidly recalculate his options and he jerks to a halt. She picks out the contents of the parcel and puts them into her pocket, tipping the stinking outer wrappings back into the gloved hands of the servant. She smiles at him, knife still in hand, asks: “Could you get rid of that? Thank you _so_ much,” turns, and, tucking the blade away, wiping her hands, heads off at speed to her original errand.

It’s only three hours later, five idiots cajoled and – at one point – shouted into submission, that she sits, dismissing the last of them, and is reminded of what her pocket contains.

She’s earned a break. She washes her hands thoroughly, grabs a hunk of cheese and a small loaf, pours herself a tankard of what will turn around out to be not terribly nice wine and, using her writing board as a tray, takes them upstairs to d’Artagnan’s room.

She puts the board in the middle of the bed and reminds herself again to get a desk – or at least a decent table – for the room. And, for that matter, a chair. She sits on the bed, then leans, removes her shoes, and swings her legs up onto the bed, tucking her feet under her skirts and finally fishing the letters out of her pocket.

None of them are official-looking. Nothing to suggest belated tragedy. She picks out d’Artagnan’s immediately and holds it for a small while, mind oddly blank, swiping at her eyes, which are leaking beyond her volition or sense, then takes a deep breath and unfolds it.

She closes her eyes for a long moment. Injured. Of course. And she’s willing to wager that it was far more serious than his feebly airy tone is making out. In fact, she rather wonders whether Athos sent her that first move in the chess game rather than tell her. Damn his eyes!

She takes three slow, deep breaths, blinks, and looks at the ceiling. She knew what she’d signed up for. This is just. Well. This is just the way it is. She doesn’t have to like it, but she will have to accommodate it.

She leans, returns with a lump of cheese, which she rather shoves in her mouth before lifting the letter again. Come on, husband – what else have you got for me?  
  


But it’s not _all_ , is it, she finds herself thinking, wiping at her eyes again, almost impatiently. And she finds she can’t bear to read Athos’s next, worried that that thought, fleeting though it was, might poison any pleasure that she might take from it, so turns to what must be Porthos’s, which appears to have been rolled into a small tube, then squashed flat by the exigencies of travel.  
  


This time she wipes her eyes with a grateful kind of smile, and resolves to send Porthos something that smells good, and of home, that will survive the journey, however long it may take this time.

She turns next to Athos’s, untucks the various folds to find it doubled with a separate chess grid, and smiles, thinking that, at this rate, this will be the slowest game she’s ever played in her life. The letter itself is, of course, coded, so she sighs and takes a couple of bites of bread and a slug of the wine to fortify her, grimacing at the latter. She squirms her pencil out of her pocket, places the remains of the food next to her where she can finish it in pecks between sentences, and sets about transcribing onto the back of the chess grid:  
  


  
Oh my. She finds herself rather breathless. He has managed to be both more and less explicit than d’Artagnan, so that her images of “command” and “ambush” are now rather expanded into something stormy and warmly passionate, where breath and tongue (“lapped around by wind-bellow”) govern even the most dismal weather.

She sees them so strongly now, d’Artagnan mastered by Athos’s mouth, Athos surrendering to d’Artagnan’s, and warmth uncoils from her belly to flood upwards to her chest and… downwards.

She leans back on the spare, thin, military pillows of what will surely be her marital bed, and just lets herself _feel_ for a moment, breathing in the imagined scent of the summer’s day when they wrote to her, the flowers lying under a pillow in a warm tent, a moment of quiet where they thought of her, conjured her by them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### Text of First Part of d’Artagnan’s Letter:
> 
> 1 June 1636
> 
> Dear Constance,
> 
> Please forgive me for not writing this letter sooner – everything became rather intense shortly after yours arrived. The cannonade kind of intense…
> 
> Both Athos and Porthos send their love, but they have written their own notes to you, so you can read for yourself. Porthos hurt his shoulder again throwing a Spanish soldier. He was rather grumpy about it [written in the margin with an arrow pointing to this point: ‘remember that dancing bear we saw, who wouldn’t dance? like that’] for a while, but he’s recovered now. [Written in the gap between this and the next paragraph in slightly smaller writing: ‘Considering Athos would probably have died if he hadn’t, I was glad enough to share a tent with a bear for a while.’]
> 
> We forgot to tell you before, but I injured my leg a couple of months back. It’s fine now, but it was rather limiting, and for a while the bear had an equally grumpy bearcub “resting” alongside him. Sorry I didn’t say. It’s fine now. ~~I have a really excellent scar.~~
> 
> #### Text of Second Part of d’Artagnan’s Letter:
> 
> Your letter arrived with perfect timing and gave us both quite the lift. Thank you! Porthos decided to go and seek other company, so we took the time to exchange gifts, though it was not quite the time for yours. It’s still going to be a _surprise_ for Athos, I think. He was rather _commanding_ when he gave his gift. Mine was more of an  ambush, I guess you’d say.
> 
> I think of you at night as well, and during the day, if I’m honest, though there’s less chance to imagine quite so vividly. But it’s like there’s a bit of you tucked inside me everywhere I go, where I can’t lose it. A bright piece amongst everything else.
> 
> I picked some wildflowers for you, to send, but no-one here knows [added in above this point: ‘or is willing to say’] how you treat flowers to send them. I’ll find someone who can draw them, maybe. Would you like that?
> 
> I hope you are well.
> 
> With all my love, _d’Artagnan_
> 
> #### Text of Porthos’s Letter:
> 
> Dear Constance,
> 
> How goes it with you? It is much the same here. Thank you for your good wishes. My head is fine, and my shoulder is back to strength now I reckon – it has never been quite right since Rochefort buggered it.
> 
> I miss you. I’d give you a hug but I currently stink. I miss Paris too, but I reckon it’ll still stink, though more of fish and fresh-baked bread and taverns and the river than here, which mostly smells of gunpowder, hot metal, fresh blood, stale sweat, and terrible wind.
> 
> (Seriously, Constance, you’ve no idea what this many men on this much bad food smells like.)
> 
> Kiss Paris from me.
> 
> PORTHOS X
> 
> #### Text of Athos’s Letter:
> 
> Dear Constance,
> 
> [Clearly added in later at the top of the letter in slightly smaller script: ‘It is good practice to shift interpretations – any continuation of our correspondence will need to step further than my initial one.’]
> 
> How is it with you? We have known some dry times since last we spoke, and some where the waters threatened our footing indeed. We all fare well, however, and think fondly often of you.
> 
> In the dark, as the tent sways and billows, and the rain trickles, ineluctable, singing its soft percussion against each surface, you come to my mind, and your smile lights the day that follows.
> 
> Your messages arrived late in April, and it was on such a wind-blessed, tempestuous night that he read to me those passages of your letter that multiplied regard. I, in my turn, interpreted your coded hopes to him. Inspired by your example, our spirits were raised, and we were able to make time to exchange such gifts as we could afford, lapped around by wind-bellow as we were.
> 
> In the midst of storm we found a warm, still place. All that was missing in that moment was you.
> 
> Such gifts as I can bring back from war, I will press upon you as soon as may be, should you so desire, and hope you find comfort in these words, and in the enclosed, in the meantime.
> 
> With great affection,
> 
> _Athos_


	2. Garrison Alone

A few minutes later it’s clear that, even in the chill of an albeit sunny November afternoon, this heat isn’t dissipating and, of course, the more she thinks about it, the worse it gets.

D’Artagnan would find the look she throws about the room – in particular to the door – very familiar. She slides decisively from the bed, strides to the door to lock it firmly, leaving the key half-turned so that no-one can surprise her.

And her them, of course.

She listens carefully – again, the yard is filled with the halting rhythms of training, and she finds her mind telling over several notions in one moment: pride in her and Treville’s achievement so far; happiness that the garrison is starting to sound as it should again; what happened the last time she was in a bed here in the middle of the day with busy clatter outside. The window is closed and, just for good measure, she swings the shutters to and bolts them.

We’re on the top floor – it should be fine.

She casts her eyes over the two letters again, Porthos’s placed carefully, face-down on the floor, reconfigures the pair of them in her mind, allows herself the luxury of detail now – d’Artagnan gasping loudly, head thrown back; Athos grimacing, almost as if in pain, straining and near-silent until he’s pushed to the limits of his emotional control. She sees the flush spreading over them, hears the rain lash outside, feels their heat, smells their arousal.

She feels her breath and heart rate speeding, licks lips that suddenly feel dry, bites her lower lip at the pouncing memory of the first time d’Artagnan took his mouth to her, eyes coming up, sly and enormous, to watch her face as she gasped in astonishment when she finally worked out what he was about to do, what he was doing. Her head goes back, eyes closed, just as it did then, her body surging to the beat of his tongue. And now another favourite joins this – of her mind all-but lost to pleasure as they both fastened their mouths on her nipples, both of them with fingers inside her as she thrashed in coils of white-hot pleasure, Athos diligently taking her to her peak again in two swift successions after this as she moaned her release against d’Artagnan.

Her left hand is gathering her skirts higher over her raised knees, her right hand on the back of her thigh, fingertips circling gently over the fabric of the stocking that barely blunts the sensation on the sensitive skin that spreads its message of arousal from just below her buttock down to her knee and upwards to tingle along her spine. And she remembers the first time Anne surrendered, rocked hard and hot against her thigh, soaking her shift in shocked ecstacy, strong, slender fingers clutching hard in her flesh. She mourns briefly for all she might have had, had Anne been anyone else in the world at all, then determinedly gives herself over to the delight – only happy memories here.

Left hand having finished its task, it smooths up her bodice and gently pulls the collar of her dress away from her breasts and begins to stroke at what it can reach. She briefly considers the merits of removing her corset and rejects it on the grounds of practicality in the aftermath, _though loosening it might be a good idea_. Yes.

That achieved, she realises that she craves more direct friction now. Her right hand moves to the front of her underwear, which is already feeling damp and very warm. She closes her eyes on a shudder of imagining how she’ll feel inside, presses harder and starts to circle gently, even as her hips start to rock lightly against her hand.

No. Not enough. She slips questing fingers up the leg of her linens, but finds the seam problematic, restraining her and – crucially – providing too much of a distraction.

Off with them, then. Oh. And now she is rewarded with the scent of herself, heady and wanton, and she teases her fingertips through her damp curls, swirling towards her goal, gasping at the sliding heat that greets her almost more than the sensation of being touched.

She spreads the moisture along the length of her cleft, then starts to circle her bud. Oh. Oh, that’s nice. She bucks briefly, a tiny bark of sound breaking from the back of her throat, then realises that what she wants is to feel her pleasure deep inside. It’s an indulgence she hasn’t allowed herself for a while, always seeking the quicker, surface tweak of sharp pleasure, claiming that she doesn’t have time, or that’s all she needs, and often that’s true, but _right now_ she needs to rock, beckon, thrust; draw out the buried joy to spread to every limit of her, as slow and thorough as she can eke time for.

And maybe it’s the setting – the last time she felt this kind of pleasure in this building… mmmh, the wave-shattered sunlight reflections summoned by overtaxed nerves dappling through her body, swaying and breaking across his touch, drawing it into her, him hard, hot, sweating joy and desperation, absolutely under her control, aching to shatter himself and…

Two fingers deep inside herself now, she feels her muscles beat and clutch lightly and it’s… ohh, it’s _very nearly_ enough and…

Oh.

Oh, Constance, what’s that image? Chase it.

“Oh.”

She scrambles to her feet, dives to the floor and reaches under the bed to the silk-swathed parcel, the wicked gift, the fabric cool against her shivering fingertips.

Dare she?

 _Absolutely_.

The gold-chased purple of the wrapping falls back and she’s stroking the lid. The colour of the wood is almost exactly that of d’Artagnan’s skin by the end of summer; much as she last saw him, in fact.

Taking and holding a breath, she flips the hasp and opens the box.

The contents are less surprising on second viewing, but no less shocking, really. However, that shock runs through her in a very different way this time. It’s more like the shock of d’Artagnan first telling her he loved her; of the first time he entered her; of the first time she saw frank desire for herself in Athos’s eyes; the first… mmh, Anne taking her fingers into her mouth. Fuck. Anne kneeling to her. Oh _God_.

Shaking hands reach to the phalluses in their velvet niches, and, oh my, what _that_ metaphor does to her… She finds herself intimidated by the sheer girth of the larger one, so reaches instead to free the smaller one from its clever straps.

Designed for travel. Right.

She lifts it up to her face, almost without volition, drawing in its scent, which is of the wood itself, but also something like soap, or maybe some kind of fragranced oil.

Oh.

Oh my.

Constance can feel her pulse thumping everywhere as she surrenders the battle against the images of this used, washed tenderly, oiled, stroked, _loved_. And yes, she thinks, pragmatic for a moment, oil would be a good move if–

_If?!_

All right – _when_.

 _Now_.

Oh God.

She strokes the thing down her cheek and neck, revelling in the smoothness of it, the lightest sensation of grain, and she wishes, for a moment, to be entirely nude, blessed with hours of time, to have this beautiful texture follow all the contours of her body, scrolling over curves, teasing nipples, belly, thighs until…

Until.

Fuck.

Her mind rolls through rapid calculations, sees the oil spill, mingle with her juices, how that might–

Right.

First: oil. When she and her helpers had packed d’Artagnan’s old room and moved it up here with the tacit plan for it to be both of theirs, long-term, or at least in the interim, after he returned, she’d carefully stowed the oil in among some personal effects of his and buried the box wholesale in a drawer before anyone could helpfully put the bottle in the mess kitchen. She fetches it out, peers critically at the consistency, shakes it, and tucks it under her armpit to warm, wincing slightly.

Next: the bed. She untucks and folds back the nearest top corner, piling up the pillows against the wall.

Next: skirts. She removes the outer one, luckily quite plain and unfussy, in the style she’s been dressing in more frequently recently, while the renovation of the garrison is still in progress. Sitting on the bed, she swings herself up and kicks under the slightly stale-smelling sheets to make a niche for herself, and, setting the oil down by her side, hoicks back her skirts past her waist so that her bare arse is flush with the sheets and the fabric out of the way of any… spillage.

Some of the heat has gone out of her, she can’t help but notice, so she picks up and reads again those passages from their letters, remembers and remembers, finds she doesn’t have to delve too deep for it after all, her warmth reflecting from the sheets, warming them as they warm her.

Now: the godemiche. It is still a little intimidating, so, with a mischievous quirk, she lifts it to her lips and kisses it. For luck. Swirling the tip of her tongue about its head… that’s for luck as well. Mmh.

She ducks her head and draws it a little more firmly between her lips, caressing with her tongue, feeling bubbles of sheer… she can only call it _naughtiness_ … wind up from her belly to tickle her throat, summoning a chuckle that ebbs into a moan.

Dear God, the thought of anyone seeing her – Madame d’Artagnan, pragmatic, taking no nonsense from anyone, ruthless in negotiation with anyone from haberdashers to builders to swordmasters, sucking a wooden cock with a smile on her face and a wanton flush mounting her – it makes her squirm and heat all the harder.

Her fingers are back between her legs again, and now she’s thinking in terms of readying herself to feel the undoubted stretch of this thing, which leads her to recall preparing d’Artagnan to take Athos and… mmh, _fuck_ , her fingers speed at the conjured lust, good Christ, the _sounds_ he made, the way he felt around her.

She needs

_Now_

      to

_Now_

             oil the

_Now, now_

                     phallus, before she ends up leaving teeth marks in it. She pours oil as carefully as possible into her cupped right hand, smears it over the thing along with her own juices, thinks: _maybe some more_ , in a sudden flush of nerves, splashes a little more into her palm and slicks it down the contoured surface, sets the bottle on the floor while she still has her sense about her.

Oh God. Now she recalls the hot, hard curve of Athos, thrusting lightly into her oiled fist as he kissed d’Artagnan, her guiding them together and–

Right, enough preparation. It’s warm and slick enough, by Christ and, if it’s not, I’ll surely make it so in short order.

She pulls her fingers from her slowly, meaning to further lubricate the thing, but ends up bringing them to her lips as the phallus dips between her thighs. God’s bones, she can never get enough of that taste. But. But. Mmh, oh, but she’ll need both hands after all.

Steadying the bulbous base in her right hand, she pulls herself wider with the fingers of her left, feels the head notch in her, still a little cool, but blunt, bulbous, entirely right, pushing, now, a little… extra… _pressure_ …

And she can’t help it – she imagines this held in the long, pale, aristocratic  fingers of its previous owner, slowly easing its way inside, stretching her open as she herself is opened. Oh God. If she’d been asked, especially a couple of years ago, she imagines she would have been pragmatic, but a little repulsed in a rather self-aware fashion in her reaction. Now the image has her groaning, head tilted back as it slides inside her. _Olisbos_ , to slide or glide.

Oh God, dear God. She has had nothing inside her but her own fingers for too long – the extra girth and the obscene slickness of this is stealing her breath. The slight but emphatic curve of the thing pushes against that deep, smooth part of her almost _too_ hard, too early. Somewhat trepidatious, she pulls it back a little, stifles another groan as it echoes the beckoning of her fingers. Now in again, slowly, as she alters the approach slightly and… oh, and saints have mercy – it won’t take long at this rate.

She knows already that this is not something to take hard and high inside herself – its unyielding surface will likely cause her some discomfort too deep, but stroking in short, perfectly-angled thrusts like this? Perfection.

Heat bursts from her belly to engulf her in short order – she has never felt anything quite like this depth of isolated arousal this quickly.

Oh God, she’s groaning so _loudly._ Any minute now someone will–

“Oh, _fuck!_ ” She is warm all through, and everything in her is rising to this as she pistons her hips forward, belly clenching, does it again, pushes the ball of her free thumb into her mouth for a gag, and even that tugs her arousal higher, teeth and tongue catching and caressing. He’ll have his gift soon, or she’ll want to know the reason why.

And fire is spreading everywhere as she speeds up her motions quite without volition. D’Artagnan tells her she’s beautiful, that he wants to see her, hear her; holds her close as she shudders in his grip. Athos smiles, proud of her, eyes bright as summer sunrise. Anne crouches, intent, almost feral; tells her to bring herself, orders her in a way she didn’t dare in the reality of memory. Constance grinds onto the godemiche, head back, spine arched, free hand now clenched in the bedclothes. Lips pinned together, her throat lets loose an animal sound as she crests so hard stars burst across her vision.

Subsiding slowly, she feels the muscles of her quim clench and _clench_ against the hard surface, milking it in vain, she thinks, on a thready giggle. Knowing how hard she tends to hold inside, especially after such a climax… um… where… hmm. Her thoughts are twitching about her head, rambling off the path to look at daisies on the way. No daisies – wrong time of year. She only has a short… time… It’s.

Wait.

Oh, that’s not so comfortable. There’s a way. Two ways. To withdraw. Three ways. Four, only no time, and this is never going to subside. Permanent hard-on for the Greek ladies! A creak of seesawed laughter. Donkey. No. Wait. Three. And no time, so two. Okay.

Two ways to break the grip – push back down towards the spine, or start up the fluidity that comes with… you said fluid. Heh. Heh-heh.

Okay. Okay, going to. To. Mmh.

She strokes her bud with her left, sending a crackling jolt through her, and pushes the thing a notch _inward_ with her right, then lets it bounce back to its original, locked position. And again, while she strokes above. It’s _almost too much_ , but. But no. Mmh.

Oh.

She slips the thing free as her muscles loosen, her juices begin to run again, and consoles herself against the emptiness with fingers and sighs and a rhythmic humming, rocking into herself. Oh. Oh, that’s. Oh, perfect, as she loosens and slides, joints unlocking.

 _You can’t sleep here_.

What d’Artagnan calls the aftershock strikes, and it’s almost painful, but wonderful, her fingers adding their own counterpoint, and her thoughts shatter again, then form a shining ball of wild confidence and she giggles, louder this time, breathes deep, and sits up sharply. The room swings around her, but she grips it, thinks: _no_ , blinks her vision into submission.

_Get up, get up, get up._

Slowly.

_Come on!_

Hmm, no injuries, please. How _did_ you come by that dunt on your head, Madame d’Artagnan? Well, I was fucking myself on a wooden diddler in the middle of the day and I climaxed so hard I knocked the sense out of myself before panicking and getting up too quickly. And _then_ I tripped on the bottle of oil I’d been using to slick the thing and smacked my head on the wall.

 _Fine_.

She sniggers aloud before she can help herself, then catches sight of the thick, white cream on the dark wood and laughs loudly for what feels like a long time until she realises that she is crying – long, gulping, hitching sobs – and she curls upright on the bed, hugging and rocking herself until the storm passes and she feels peaceful in a hollowed-out kind of way.

She takes a few deep, measured breaths, and rolls herself gently into the next steps.

As she’s washing up, dressed and laced and booted again, blessing herself for the foresight to get some water in here for any time she might need to use the room at short notice, she considers her options – if climax is going to crack her open like this for the whole time he’s away, she might have to stop altogether. _Or give yourself time to crack and mend every so often, let the bad humours out_.

Thoughtful still, she diligently and gently oils the washed and patted-dry godemiche and returns it to its niche, closing and wrapping and putting away, this time to a drawer in the dresser. This is far too fine a thing to consign to dusty darkness, after all.

Step light and fluent, she leaves the room, dashing back moments later to pick up her underwear and step into it hurriedly. Shaking her head, she leaves, surprising the next cadet she sees with a softer smile than any he’s yet seen on her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I refer you to the [end notes of the previous work’s second chapter for some insight if you’ve not gone there yet… ;)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16122455#chapter_2_endnotes)


End file.
